


Color Me a Butterfly

by RoseNightenDove



Series: Butterfly Chronicles [1]
Category: YYH, Yu Yu Hakusho, YuYu Hakusho, 幽☆遊☆白書 | YuYu Hakusho: Ghost Files
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/M, Romance, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-18 00:09:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15473142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseNightenDove/pseuds/RoseNightenDove
Summary: Choucho, a demon who appears completely human, joins Yoko and Kuronue's team of bandits and thieves. With secrets of her own, she earns their trust and tries her hardest to deal with life's blows. Set before Yoko's transition to Suichi Minamoto's body, it tells the beginning of a romance that will be tested by death, time, and strength of will. Part One of the Butterfly Chronicles.





	Color Me a Butterfly

Makai, 245 years before Yoko Kurama’s transformation into the body of Suichi Minamino.

His dodging did not remind her of a fighter, but of a dancer. No matter what the opponent threw at him, he moved with such a deadly grace that it reminded her of some of her homeland’s battle dances. It promised a beautiful display just as it promised pain to anyone who went too near to him. His long silver hair helped complete the look of a dancer by whipping around him as he dodged this way and that, just as his tail, which matched his hair and white ears, swam through the air.

The ending was obvious to the woman who watched. It was only a practice bout, and Yoko Kurama had promised to go easy on the want-to-be thieves. If it wasn’t, they would have all died by his strength, speed, and cunning only without him ever having to bring out his more special gifts. With his rose-whip alone, he lashed out at the last moment, attaching it to one of the trainee’s legs, pulling him from the edge of the practice ring, which the group had been working him towards, trying to corner him. Said trainee toppled backward in the next instant, leg luckily only bleeding a tiny bit despite the sharp thorns on the whip. Oh yes, Yoko Kurama was going easy on them if he didn’t leave that trainee with deep gouges on his leg.

Stepping forward, the red-kimono wearing woman walked into the practice bout. “That’s enough,” She called to the young demons who were about to head at him again, was it their 6th attempt to corner the fox demon, or their 8th? She’d honestly lost track. She’d watched the last five bouts he’d had over the last 48 hours, and she knew when it was pointless to go on without corrections being made. However, this was her first time doing such corrections herself.

It did not help that in appearance, she seemed almost human. There were no horns, a tail, or strange eyes to denote her demonic powers. Her power level seemed, to the casual observer, barely registering at all. Because of this, some of them didn’t obey her command, rage at having failed fueling them to keep on going at Yoko. He kicked the demons away, laying them flat on the ground with far more powerful kicks than he’d been using until then. 

“If you move again, my pet will eat you,” he warned as a large plant similar to the human world Venus Fly Trap rose behind him. It reinforced his warning by eating one of the three demons that had still been moving.

“Kilin, you were too far from the rest of the pack. This is a team exercise not a solo mission. Rix, you were too close to your teammate. You are going to end up stabbing him instead,” she chided, not afraid of the giant plants that followed her movements as if she might be the next delicious meal.

Yoko sat back as he watched his servant make the necessary corrections. He watched her with admiration. She had been his personal servant for the last six months, since joining the ranks. She had shown an eye for fighting when a demon thief had snuck in with the intent of killing Yoko. The thief had found not only Yoko absorbed with studying a map, but also the little woman cleaning.

She had dropped what she was doing as soon as she’d seen the threat. Producing a dagger from her kimono sleeve, she had slid forward to engage the thief before he even a few feet into the room. Flashes of light were all that was seen as her dagger slashed through the air, cutting first the man’s wrist that held the knife, making him drop the threat. Next, she’d gone for his throat. Between the moment the thief had slid into the room, and his death, no more than three minutes had passed.

Yoko had invited her to observe some training sessions after that, wanting to get a grasp on what extent her knowledge of fighting. Why would a simple maid know how to kill a demon? Sure, she was a demon, but such a low class that he’d thought her entirely harmless. With the lightest amber eyes, Yoko had ever seen in a demon, and straw blond hair pulled back into a braid, she looked nothing like the demons around them where eyes and hair ranged all colors of the rainbow. Briefly, Yoko realized as she walked forward, her hair usually was swirling around her shoulders and waist rather than contained. Always straight, always in order, this change to her hair added another layer to the simple maid he had believed her to be. Not only that, but she seemed to take fighting far more seriously than she had taken any other task he had given her. Now she was a warrior in silks.

Curiously, Yoko allowed one of his fly trappers to move forward towards the back of the maid. What even was her name again? He hadn’t bothered to ask. If she didn’t prove herself, there was no reason to know it. As the demon-eating creature inched forward behind her, rearing up to gobble her down as it had the other demon, she whipped around and turned eyes that sparkled a warning. 

“And you, Master Yoko, let your guard down five times in the last three minutes of the fight.”

The accusation caught him off guard just as much as the eyes that showed anything but their usual submissiveness.

Yoko wasn’t sure how he felt about this new defiance in his maid. He snapped his fingers and the plant stopped writhing. Returning it to a seedling, so that he was not in danger of being a target as well, he rose from his spot, advancing on the young female.

“I allowed you to come and observe the students, not me. Those drops in guard were to see if they were paying attention,” he growled, anger snapping in his golden eyes.

“You asked me to critique the fight, Master Yoko. You never specified who I was or wasn’t supposed to critique,” she retorted. Students began to edge away from the woman who was so boldly defying Yoko.

Yoko Kurama was indeed close to taking her head for insubordination when a tall demon moved forward laughing. Matching Yoko at 6’4’’, the demon had hair as long as Yoko’s but pulled back up into a ponytail that was fed up through a hole in a witch-like hat before hanging down to the top of his hips. Where Yoko’s was the white of snow, his was the pitch black of a new moon night. To top off the look, his pointed ears added to the appearance of a giant imp coming to play.

“Kuronue!” Yoko snapped, “Do not laugh, it’ll only invite her to be more of a pain in my ass. She doesn’t need any more encouragement!” His golden eyes narrowed without real conviction behind it. This was his best friend after all. He could never really be angry at the bat demon, but he could sure be angry at the others, especially this annoying woman!

“I am sorry my friend, but she was correct. The fact that she stood up to you only made it better for me to watch,” Kuronue answered as he jumped up into the ring. His bat wings spread to slow his descent so that he landed silently. “So, is this the maid you took on a few months past? Is she a human?”

Choucho had stayed out of the way of most of the demons that Yoko included in his bandit pack. She hadn’t wanted others to know her very well. Even with Yoko, she had never revealed her real species. The fact that she looked like an ordinary human and her lack of demonic parts only helped her more with that.

“No, Master Kuronue. I am a demon. I merely look human, which makes me all the more deadly,” she replied with a small shrug. Finding it hard to look up at the tall men who towered over her shorter 5’6’’ self by ten inches, she took a couple steps back so her neck wasn’t being tortured to meet their gaze.

“Then what kind of demon are you? There are few demons who don’t have obvious signs of demonic origin,” Kuronue pointed out as he circled her like a predator. He made a vague motion towards the other demons and Yoko all who had something that set them apart from humanity.

The young demoness cocked her head to the side and then smiled, “You ask my demonic race before you ask my name Master Kuronue? And here I was beginning to believe you were the kinder of my two employers.” She was sidestepping the question as best she could. They would not like the answer, nor would they believe her.

Kuronue’s lips twitched in amusement, eyes darkening with curiosity as he continued to circle her. “All right. What is your name, little curiosity.” It was less a question and more a demand now.

“Choucho,” she said, turning now with him so that he was never at her back. It was an odd sort of dance that they were making. He paused and then started to go the other way. She followed. Had there been music, and he’d come a few feet forward to wrap his arms around her, they could have danced. That was if she allowed him that close as well.

“Choucho,” Kuronue purred, an eyebrow slowly raising as he finally stopped trying to circle her. A shiver ran up her back. It felt like he was drawing his tongue along every syllable of her name, testing it and making love to it without so much as touching her. Her heart kickstarted and began to rush. “Well then, Miss Choucho. Why don’t you tell us what kind of demon you are?” 

“I only tell those that I think are worthy to know. I will not tell you, Master Kuronue.”

“Then tell me. You work for me after all. I out to know what kind of demons, even weak level ones like you, work for me,” Yoko growled, coming to stand behind her. He was tired of her defiance, and her dancing around the subject. This wasn’t the first time he had tried to find out in indirect ways what kind of demon she was. But without knowing what her name was, that had been nearly impossible.

Choucho turned, frowning as she had to crane her head back to see the man. She debated whether or not it was wise to lie or to tell. She may have been staring fearlessly at the fly trapper creature earlier, but inside she had been quivering in her boots. She was no animal spirit that could control plants like Yoko could. She was no fire demon that could summon flames to defend herself. She would have been helpless, for she didn’t have anything but her lips to save her at the moment. Her lips and her fighting skills. She cursed the assumption she had made when she hadn’t brought any powders or other methods of defense with her to this analysis of the battle.

Licking her lips, she settled on a half-truth. It would be enough to allow her to keep her secrets a little longer, but not too much longer. It was also a very dangerous half-truth to tell.

“Master Yoko, I am a demon of poisons,” she finally said, folding her hands in front of her as she awaited her fate.


End file.
